


A Friend Flinches Not

by Igneum807



Series: If We Must Starve (Let it be Together) [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Competent!Jaskier, Healer!Jaskier, Healing, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fic, Serious Injuries, Some Feral!Jaskier, Witchers learn self-care, he's an idiot with skills ok?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Igneum807/pseuds/Igneum807
Summary: Jaskier knows that, for the most part, he’s useless. A burden. He’s pretty and he sings well, but he doesn't have much more to offer Geralt on his Path.  Medicine, though, is a decidedly useful skill. It’s one that does not require strength or fighting ability- just a sharp mind and hours of study. And oh, how Jaskier has studied.If only Vesemir would stop underestimating him.Part of a series, technically, but can absolutely be read as a standalone.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: If We Must Starve (Let it be Together) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706485
Comments: 226
Kudos: 2732
Collections: Good Relationship Etiquette (familial included) - or Good BDSM Etiquette - or Good Relationship and BDSM Etiquette





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [selectivegeekwithstandards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selectivegeekwithstandards/gifts).



> Hey guys! This was my response to a prompt from selectivegeekwithstandards, who left me one hell of an idea in the comments section of If I Starve. Nothing too graphic here, violence wise, but there are some pretty icky descriptions of wound care, so be warned. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, this takes place one year after If I Starve and before the events of Wrath of the Wolves.

It’s a human that brings him down. Not a monster, not a sorcerer, not even a wild animal. Just a human, and Geralt thinks there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but Jaskier isn’t here to point it out. 

Geralt and Eskel went down the mountain for a final supply run before winter set in for good. The town nearest Kaer Morhen is more tolerant of Witchers than most, and their market is admirable for a small place. There is usually a vendor or two who still has fresh produce- limp, but fresh, and better than anything they’re going to have for the next few months. 

“Stop by the apothecary for my usual order,” Vesemir told them. “We need herbs, too, and salt.”

“And sweets,” Jaskier called, lounging by the fire like a cat who got the cream. He wore his ‘winter silks’- a collection of light blues and grey that was seasonal, but hardly practical. Geralt added _winter coat for Jaskier_ to his mental list and turned to Lambert. 

“Anything for you?”

His brother grinned. “See what new daggers the blacksmith has. I told him this summer I’d pay extra for anything really interesting, and I’m sure he’s thought of something by now.”

“Right,” Eskel said, “medicine, herbs, salt, sweets, and…interesting knives.” Geralt could hear the sigh in his voice. “We’ll be back by nightfall.”

Jaskier tossed him a pouch of coins. Geralt weighed it in his hand with surprise and raised an eyebrow at his bard. 

“For the candy,” Jaskier said. “I’ve been saving up.”

Geralt shook his head, but he couldn’t keep the fondness from his eyes. “Nightfall,” he repeated, and followed Eskel out of the hall. 

They found everything within the hour. Vesemir’s apothecary had a bag ready on the counter, a rich mix of poultices and salves for every injury under the sun. Geralt saw that order nearly every year, but this time it contained something new. He took one vial out of the bag and pushed it into the apothecary’s hands. It was a common cure for the winter flu- useless to Witchers. 

“We won’t need this one.”

It said something about this town that the woman met his eyes without flinching. “Apologies, Master Witcher, but the man I spoke with specifically requested it. For your human friend, he said.” Her eyes crinkled on the word “friend,” but it hardly caught Geralt’s notice. He was too busy cramming down the helpless anxiety that came with the thought of Jaskier getting sick. That winter coat jumped rapidly up his list of priorities. 

He paid, thanked the apothecary, and swept out of the shop. 

Eskel met him back at the stables. He was lounging against the stall door when Geralt walked in, twirling a dagger with three savage teeth cut into the blade and amber pieces patterned in the hilt. 

“What’s he going to kill with _that?_ ” Geralt asked. 

“No idea,” Eskel shrugged, “but it’s definitely interesting.”

They set off, coin purses empty and saddlebags full, Jaskier’s new coat laid across Roach’s back like a nobleman’s livery. The frigid air whipped through Geralt’s hair and he let his mind drift. It was Jaskier’s second winter at the castle, the second year in a row that he travelled not only with Geralt, but with his brothers as well. Navigating that was easier now, with the pendants. They came with the obvious benefit of knowing where, and how safe, Jaskier was at all times, as well as the less obvious but no less welcome benefit of hearing from his brothers far more often than before. 

Eskel’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Geralt. Smell that?”

Geralt turned his nose to the wind and inhaled deeply. There, beneath the crispness of snow and the familiar musk of Roach, was the tang of human blood. He nodded and nudged Roach into a trot. 

They were halfway to the castle- no place where humans should be bleeding. It wasn’t a place where humans should be at all, and Geralt focused in on the scent as much as he could, shoulders slumping when he realized it wasn’t Jaskier. 

“What the fuck are humans doing near here?”

“Vesemir mentioned bandits in the area,” Eskel said. “Could be related.”

“There’s no one here to target but us.”

Eskel let out a wry laugh. “Never said they were smart.”

Geralt let out a grunt of frustration. He tuned his senses to the mountain air. Metallic blood, its scent heavy in his nose. Cool breeze on his skin. Whistling. 

Whistling, and then bright pain as an arrow buried itself deep in his back. 

He shouted and whirled in Roach’s saddle. A second arrow, meant for his heart, slammed into Geralt’s chest, a third quick on its heels. Eskel yelled his name as he fell, and then he knew no more.

…

Jaskier, Vesemir, and Lambert feel the impact like a bolt of lightning through their pendants. They’re on their feet at once- the Witchers running to their weapons as Jaskier clutches his chest, heaves breaths into his constricted lungs, and _prays._

_Bandits,_ Eskel tells them. _Too many for me alone._

_On our way,_ Lambert replies. He and Vesemir are gone in seconds, horses saddled and swords strapped across their backs as they thunder down the mountain. They disappear through the gate and Jaskier throws himself into motion. 

Three impacts. Three arrows. That means stitches, disinfecting salve, and bandages; lots of bandages, if the wounds are in Geralt’s chest, and boiling water to clean the wound. Painkiller, too. Something for Geralt to bite down on while Jaskier works. 

He runs to his room and grabs the medical pack he keeps stocked for the road. It’s by far the heaviest thing he carries on a daily basis. He has taken great care that Geralt never learn truly how heavy. If his Witcher knew the weight of all Jaskier carries for his wounds, well, he would insist they leave some of it behind. An unacceptable choice, in Jaskier’s mind. 

Jaskier knows that, for the most part, he’s useless. A burden. He’s pretty and he sings well- two things which keep them in coin more often than not- but he also complains a lot, gets into fights he can’t possibly win, and slows Geralt down with his pesky human needs like _sleep._ Geralt loves him, that much he knows, but love does not make him less of a burden. It just means Geralt puts up with him more. 

Medicine, though, is a decidedly useful skill. It’s one that does not require strength or fighting ability- just a sharp mind and hours of study. And oh, how Jaskier has studied. 

_Told him I was playing in taverns down the mountain and shacked up with a healer instead,_ Jaskier told Vesemir once. _Lovely old lady, quite good at knitting. She talked my ear off about tinctures and salves and stitches and the like- I filled a whole notebook._

It was a half-truth, that little speech. Jaskier _did_ spend that winter with a healer. Irene Radford- the top medical mind in Kaedwen. He tracked her down at the King’s court and threw himself at her feet, begging for the chance to learn by her side. The cold months passed in a blur of coughs and fevers, every day rising at dawn and sleeping at midnight, the waking hours spent with his nose deep in a book and his hands tending to everything from stab wounds to poisonings. Jaskier left Kaedwen’s court just in time to meet Geralt at the base of the mountain and pretend he had been there the entire time. 

His quest did not end with Radford. 

Every town they passed through, Jaskier would meet with the local healer. He would offer a song or a helping hand in exchange for a little tutelage. Most village physicians were older women, their histories written deeply into the lines on their faces. Long since abandoned by any children, or, in the case of elven healers, by the villagers themselves, Jaskier found the women more than willing to share a day with him and teach what they could. It was these meetings, carefully planned so Geralt would never stumble upon him, that grew Jaskier’s collection of creams and herbs, that steadied his hand with a needle and turned his once sensitive stomach to iron. 

If Geralt ever noticed Jaskier’s rapid improvement with wound care, he didn’t comment. Jaskier would be insulted if not for the fact that Geralt was as observant as a brick wall when it came to his lover. The man didn’t notice Jaskier’s non-human heritage until over a decade by his side, for Melitele’s sake. He wasn’t about to notice something so subtle as a newly acquired skill. 

Magical healing is always better than human methods, of course, but Yennefer and Ciri are away for the week. Jaskier will have to do. 

He sits on a rock near the gates and watches the path. No one speaks down the pendants, but that is to be expected. His Witchers are silent when they fight, hesitant to reach out in times of vulnerability. Never mind that panic eats its way through Jaskier’s bones at the thought of them in need and him unable to help. 

They’re working on it. 

Time creaks by like a ship on a windless sea. Jaskier can’t bring himself to hum or go for his lute. He sits, and he watches, and he runs down the list in his mind of every herb in his pouch and what they do. Doses, mixtures. How to use what, and when, and for what kind of wound. It’s a practical distraction, he thinks. Geralt would be proud. 

Hoof beats echo on the mountainside and Jaskier’s head snaps up. Vesemir appears through the gate, his armor bloody but his movement fluid. Eskel is behind him, favoring his right side. Lambert is last. Lambert, and the body slung across his horse. A body Jaskier knows as well as his own. 

They dismount and Vesemir goes to Lambert’s side, helping him lift Geralt’s dead weight into the main hall. Jaskier trails after them. 

“Get my kit,” Vesemir orders. Lambert moves to obey, but Jaskier cuts him off. 

“No need.” He pushes past Lambert to where the others are crouched over Geralt’s body. “Let me see.”

Vesemir rounds on him, anger clipping his syllables short. “Now is not the time, Jaskier.”

Lambert pulls on Jaskier’s arm and Jaskier shakes him off. They don’t have time for this. _Geralt_ doesn’t have time for this. “Geralt is _bleeding out._ Let me see.”

“This is no place for a bard,” Vesemir seethes. “It will be too much for you to handle and I can’t have you in the way. Let us do our job.”

Jaskier sees red. “Fuck you,” he spits. “Let you do your _job?_ What job is that, exactly, Vesemir? Where the fuck have you been for the last fifteen years when I was busy patching him up from all the monsters _you_ sent him out to fight?”

“Jaskier-“

“And don’t you _dare_ treat me like some squeamish child. I get covered in blood and guts and all sorts of other shit every other day walking the fucking Path with him, and you think I’m going to, what? Piss my pants and run at the first sight of a nasty wound?” Jaskier is shouting now, voice ringing with indignant rage. “There are hundreds of fucking scars on his body, did you know that? I know because I _counted._ I was there for a lot of them, actually, and the only reason he doesn’t have more is because I made him sit the fuck down and let someone help him for once instead of treating himself like a piece of shit the way you taught him to.”

Vesemir looks a little like he’s been slapped, but he’s still standing in front of Geralt, and Geralt is still bleeding, and Jaskier is so angry that he can hear the blood pounding through his veins, hard and fast as incoming infantry. 

“Taking care of him is _my_ job." Jaskier brandishes his healer's pack as if to prove his point. "He’s the only good thing I’ve ever fucking had, so you are going to step aside, shut the fuck up, and let me help him.”

Shock flashes bright in Vesemir’s eyes, layered there with something darker that looks a lot like respect. He moves away. 

Jaskier’s fingers find the buckles on Geralt’s armor and strip him with efficiency. The thick leather is effective against monsters’ claws and splashes of poison, but it cuts like butter on the end of an arrow. He brushes the hair from Geralt’s face and mutters as he works. Early on, Jaskier was worried his constant chatter would be a source of frustration to his patients, but several healers- and on one memorable occasion, Geralt himself- have told him that his voice is grounding.

“Trouble just can’t leave you alone, can it?” he asks. “Bandits at Kaer Morhen, honestly.” Jaskier pulls off the last of Geralt’s armor and throws a glance over his shoulder at Eskel, who is hovering behind them and trying to look unconcerned. “They’re dead, I assume?”

Eskel nods. “Many times over.”

“Lovely.” Jaskier pulls a knife from his satchel and puts it to the hem of Geralt’s shirt. “Geralt, darling, I’m going to cut this off. My hands are plenty steady, as you well know, but please do try not to move.”

Geralt grunts out assent and Jaskier beams at him as he cuts the shirt into pieces and pulls the remnants away. He turns his attention to the bare wounds. 

Three arrows. One, the first, punched straight through Geralt’s chest from the back. A wicked, barbed arrowhead juts up a few inches from his heart. The second is just below the first, and the third is buried deep in Geralt’s left shoulder. It’s a miracle that they’re all high enough to miss the vital organs. 

Jaskier pulls a vial from his pouch and puts it to Geralt’s lips. “Painkiller,” he says. “Drink. You don’t want to feel it when I pull these out.”

Geralt swallows the mixture with a grimace. The first arrow will be easiest to deal with; since the arrowhead is already outside the body, he’ll be able to snap it off without any further damage. 

“Lambert,” Jaskier says, “there’s boiling water over the fire. Bring it here please.”

Lambert hastens to obey, setting the kettle down on the table and moving to help Jaskier turn Geralt on his side. Jaskier breaks the arrowhead off the shaft and focuses on Geralt’s reactions. He’ll have to pull the remaining shaft through from the back, which will hurt like a bitch. “Ready, dear? Three, two-“

Jaskier pulls the shaft on two and Geralt flinches with his entire body. He grits his teeth against a scream. Lambert sets him back down and Jaskier cleans the wound as best he can with wet rags, murmuring soothing words all the while. He rubs on some salve and wraps the whole thing tight enough to bother a normal man. It scared him the first time, afraid the bandages would hurt more than help, but the combination of overbearing pressure and Geralt’s slow heartbeat healed a stab wound faster than Jaskier had ever seen. 

The other two arrows will be more of a problem. Barbed heads means that any attempt to pull the arrows free will likely injure Geralt more than the strike itself. The only way Jaskier knows of to dislodge a barb is to cut the wound larger and reach in as carefully as he can to pull it out. 

Blood and gore he can handle. Screams and monsters, sure. It’s all part of the path he chose to walk at Geralt’s side. But this? Knowingly and purposefully harming Geralt, even if it is the only way to help him? This is what makes Jaskier bite down his bile. 

“You’re doing wonderfully, Geralt. It’ll be over soon enough, I promise.” Jaskier picks up his knife and gestures at Lambert to hold him down. “Focus on my voice, love. Just shut your eyes and listen- let everything else fade out. There you are.”

Geralt’s eyes slide closed and Jaskier angles his knife. Two quick cuts, one to each side of the arrowhead, then his fingers are in the wound. It’s slick, and red, and horrible. Jaskier wants to scream. 

“Remember that village lass in Redania? The one you saved from a noonwraith?” Jaskier’s fingers close around the arrow and he tugs, quick but precise, careful not to tear the flesh any more than he must. “She slipped me a bottle of beautifully aged whiskey for your services. Kept it in my pack as a surprise for the middle of winter, but I don’t think it would hurt anyone if we broke into it early.”

The arrowhead clatters when Jaskier drops it against the table. He presses a kiss to Geralt’s temple and begins the cleaning process anew. Boiled water. Bandages. Salve to disinfect, pressure and packing to staunch the blood. Jaskier threads a needle and stitches the wound closed with deft fingers. Geralt shakes through it, groaning and sweating, yet holding himself admirably still. 

“Thank you, love,” Jaskier says. “Just one more, then we’ll get under some blankets by the fire and cuddle up. It’ll be lovely, Geralt, just one more.”

His hands don’t shake as he cuts into Geralt again. The third arrow is in deeper, a hairsbreadth from bone. Jaskier has to widen the gash more than he’s comfortable with to reach down that far, but his hands do not shake. He won’t let them. 

There is too much blood once the arrow is free. Too much, too soon, but Jaskier takes a deep breath in and holds down a cloth over the wound until the bleeding slows. Water, bandages, salve, stitches, pressure. Prayer. 

Geralt passes out at some point and Jaskier is grateful for it. He can’t focus for too long on whose body he’s touching. Can’t think about the blood as Geralt’s or the exposed bone as Geralt’s or the half-screams as Geralt’s because then he might just collapse. The Witcher still twitches when he’s unconscious, but he falls completely silent and Jaskier is able to breathe again. 

When the final wound is sealed, Jaskier returns to the first. He cleans it again and adds more salve to the stiches. To prevent infection and promote healing- a special combination of herbs and spellwork that seems to work particularly well alongside Geralt’s mutations. He re-covers stitches with fresh bandages and repeats the process on the other two, rocking back on his heels with a sigh when they’re finished to his standards. 

“We’ll need to move him,” Jaskier says, “but not yet.” He kisses Geralt’s temple again and turns to the other Witchers, flicking his fingers at Eskel in a gesture that says _sit._ “You next. We can put him in the sick room down the hall as soon as I’ve seen to your injury.”

“I’m fine,” Eskel starts. 

“Horseshit,” Jaskier snaps at him. “You rode in here favoring your right side, you’re putting all your weight on one leg, and you’ve got a tick in your left eye that you get when you’re in pain. Shut up and sit down.”

Eskel sits, stunned. He lifts his shirt when Jaskier urges him to and downs the bottle he’s handed without a second thought. Gentle fingers prod at the gash down his left side from the one bandit who managed to land a blow. The bleeding has mostly stopped by now, but Jaskier clucks his tongue and cleans it up anyway. Eskel marvels at how steady his hands are, how meticulous he is without being any more harsh than necessary. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s a hell of a lot more tolerable than the way he treats his own wounds. 

Jaskier pulls back and drops a kiss to Eskel’s hair. The causal affection burns more than the knife wound. He leans into it, aching. 

“Eat, sleep, and don’t strain yourself,” Jaskier says. 

Vesemir and Lambert carry Geralt to the sick room under Jaskier’s watchful eye. They lay him down gently, careful not to disturb the fresh stitches. Jaskier sits with him for a while, moping his brow of sweat and generally fussing about the room until his heart slows to its normal pace and Geralt’s breathing evens out. 

He emerges an hour later to find a somber mood hanging heavy over their dinner. Eskel lets Jaskier check on his bandages good naturedly, though conversation is stilted. Jaskier is uncharacteristically quiet, raising his fork to his mouth with his eyes fixed on the table, an unnamed emotion simmering beneath his skin. He pokes at it, prods at it, worries it until he understands what it is. Guilt. His fork clatters to the ground and the Witchers’ heads snap up. 

Jaskier meets Vesemir’s eyes across the table. “I’m sorry,” he says. It’s without preamble or expectation- the exact kind of open communication that throws Vesemir for a loop every time. “I was unfair to you, earlier. I know how deeply you care about him, and all the things you’ve done for him. All the _years_ you watched out for him before I was even alive and-“ He cuts himself off with a bitter laugh and lets his eyes drop to the table. “He wouldn’t have survived this long without all you taught him. You, all of you, are the closest thing he has to family. I would never want to discredit that.”

Lambert kicks him under the table. “We know, idiot. You were scared, you said some shit. It happens.”

Jaskier offers him a grateful smile, but he watches Vesemir warily. The eldest witcher takes a long draught of his ale and sets it down with enough force to rattle the table, though his words come out measured. 

“Your accusations were not entirely unfounded.”

Eskel freezes. He turns his head, slowly, incredulity written across his face as plainly as shock is written on Jaskier’s. Vesemir continues before either of them can interrupt him. 

“You are not a squeamish bard,” he says. “That much is clear- if not from today, then from the years you have spent at Geralt’s side. As for the rest of it-“ Vesemir looks into the fire that burns beside them, the lines on his face accentuated by the flicker of the flame. In this moment, all his years lie heavy in his expression. “Life on the Path is dangerous. A slow Witcher is a dead Witcher, as you well know. I stand by every lesson and every skill I drilled into his bones. He would be dead without them.”

Lambert and Eskel nod along. Theirs is a world of monsters and scars. Vesemir taught them how to navigate that world, how to survive the claws of beasts and angry words of men. Those lessons made them who they are. 

“But I did not teach him gentleness.” Vesemir pins Jaskier with his gaze, sadness swimming just past the steel of his conviction. “You were right, that we do not easily accept kindness. I taught him to survive, nothing more. I would change that, perhaps, if I could, but it is done now. So I thank you, for teaching him what I could not.” 

Jaskier is dumbstruck. He searches blindly for something to say in return as Vesemir rises from his seat, empty dishes in hand. 

“Witchers are a dying breed,” Vesemir says. “Perhaps it is time for those of us still surviving to learn a little gentleness. If you feel inclined to teach, bard, I will be honored to listen.”

He retreats from the hall before Jaskier can get his brain working again. Lambert and Eskel turn to him with twin expressions of surprise, and more than a little pride. 

“Fucking hell,” Lambert says.

Eskel nods agreement. He pokes at the wound in his side in wonder, surprised by how quickly it is healing. “Why did you talk to him like that when you were pulling the arrows out?”

The question snaps Jaskier out of his awed stupor. “Like what?”

“Softly.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “It’s relaxing.”

“Relaxing,” Lambert echoes. “I would like to learn that. To help someone...relax.”

Warmth bursts through Jaskier’s chest, bright as the fire that blazes at his side. He smiles and runs his hand across Lambert’s jaw in a way he knows will make the other man shudder. Tonight is no exception, and Lambert leans into the touch without a blink of hesitation. “And I will be happy to teach you.”

They drag as many blankets and pillows as they can into the sick room, surrounding Geralt’s bed with a halo of linens and three bodies that warm the small space like a furnace. He may wake that night, or the painkiller Jaskier gave him may hold him under until the middle of the next day. It doesn’t matter. When Geralt wakes, he will not be alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And....I'm back. Thanks so much for all the love y'all gave to the first chapter of this. I'm so sorry it took me this long to write more. But, school is over now (and quarantine is still on) so I'll have plenty of writing time in the coming weeks. I hope you enjoy!

Pain is an old friend in Geralt’s line of work. As is the memory of pain, and the memory of the weapons that inflict it. So when he wakes, thoughts bright with the whistle of an arrow and Eskel’s shouting in his ear, it is not so much the pain that surprises him as the absence of it. 

Arrows hurt. Like hell. The initial impact is bad enough, but ripping them free from the flesh afterwards- sewing up jagged skin and dousing the wound in alcohol- may well be one of the worst pains Geralt is familiar with. Healing from wounds like that is a slow, aching process, even with all the mutations in his blood. He knows what the days will feel like. Knows the itching and the inflammation, knows how he will have to hold himself still to prevent the ripping of haphazard stitches. Geralt has dealt with arrows before.

He hasn’t dealt with this. 

His bandages are fresh and easy to pull away. There are stitches underneath, yes, but they are neat and regular. Professional. There is pain, but it is dull, and there is itching so faint he hardly has to think to ignore it. Geralt’s body is strung out and weary. This too, is usual, though he is accustomed to feeling as though he was dragged through the jaws of death. The weariness he wakes to feels more like he has gone for too long of a run than anything a monster’s claws could leave on him. 

He opens his eyes to the morning sun and sits up slowly. The stitches in his skin pull slightly as he moves, and he runs a hand over them in gratitude. Geralt recognizes Jaskier’s work when he sees it- Vesemir’s look nothing like this and, since he taught the witchers what little they know of healing, so do his brothers’. 

Laughter echoes from beyond his door, low and sharp. Geralt recognizes Lambert’s voice, though his tone is new. Even after all these months, it feels new. Laughter, for the sake of joy and not of cynicism, is atypical in the halls of Kaer Morhen. His brothers tease each other plenty. They mock and they joke and they snicker- nothing like the full body, head tossing laughter that Geralt hears now. It means Jaskier is nearby. 

He’s proven right a second later when Jaskier enters the room, bumping the door open with his hip because his hands are occupied with a large tray. Lambert stumbles in behind him, chuckling. Jaskier’s eyes go wide when they meet Geralt’s and he fumbles.

“Why are you sitting up?” he exclaims. He shoves the food into Lambert’s hands and plops into Geralt’s personal space, pushing him down with a touch that is both light and firm- demanding compliance without harshness. As if Geralt could do anything but acquiesce. 

“Good morning, Jaskier.” 

“Yes, yes, good morning.” There’s a tinge of exasperation in Jaskier’s tone, but it is rendered meaningless by the fond concern that swims in his eyes. That worry hasn’t diminished, even after all these years of seeing Geralt’s injuries. A selfish part of him hopes it never will. It’s good to know someone cares. “I’m so terribly glad you’re alright, love, but I spent ages on those stitches and I won’t have you ripping them now.”

Silk-soft fingers trail over Geralt’s chest. They trace the ridges of old scars and dance around the edges of his new wounds, still uncovered. Lambert presses a roll into Geralt’s hands as Jaskier leans back to pull a vial from the table next to the bed. He tips some liquid into his hand and rubs it over the stitches with a touch so light that, if he couldn’t see Jaskier with his own two eyes, Geralt might swear it wasn’t there. 

“Bandits,” Jaskier mutters. “Bloody idiots, more like.” He finishes with the liquid and wraps clean linen around Geralt’s middle. Geralt isn’t paying any sort of attention. The pain is drowned out by the smell of Jaskier’s skin, flowery and soft with sleep. He’s half straddling Geralt to lean over his chest, hair mused and tickling Geralt’s nose while he works. Geralt lets his eyes slide shut. 

“Jaskier,” he says, low, and his lover pulls back enough to look him in the eyes. Jaskier drops a kiss to his cheek, rough with a day’s worth of stubble. 

“You had me worried, you big lout. It wasn’t even a monster this time.”

“I’ll say it was a monster,” Lambert interjects. “The human kind, but a monster all the same.”

Jaskier clambers off Geralt’s lap carefully and hands him a glass of water. “Yes. There are far too many of that sort of monster around for my taste. Glad you and Eskel could rid us of a few of them.”

“Where is Eskel?” Geralt asks. 

“Resting. He got injured and tried hide it for a while. Remind you of anyone?” Jaskier shoots him a glare and waves his hand a little in the air for effect. “Anyway, I sent him to bed. If he gets up one moment before I tell him to, he knows there will be hell to pay.”

Geralt arcs an eyebrow. 

Jaskier arcs one right back. “You think I couldn’t?”

“Beat Eskel in a fight?” Geralt says. “Never.”

Jaskier scoffs. “Who said anything about fighting? I’d just refuse to wash his hair until he agreed to take better care of himself. Wouldn’t last a week, I assure you.”

His first instinct is to argue, but, really, a week is generous. The force of Jaskier’s disapproval is crushing- last time he stopped washing Geralt’s hair, the witcher broke down in two days. He doubts Eskel would be any better. Worse, probably, considering how pained he still looks when he has to leave Jaskier’s arms in the morning. They share a room- Geralt has seen that look on both his brothers’ faces more than he cares to acknowledge. 

Decades of loneliness exact a toll that Geralt lacks the words to explain. He tried to, once, before everything, on a night with just enough ale in his stomach and Jaskier pliant in his arms.

…

_The bed is soft beneath him. Geralt’s lips are right next to Jaskier’s ear, their bodies tangled in a mess of limbs and blankets. After two dead kikimoras and a few rounds of enthusiastic sex, Geralt is ready to sleep for a week._

_“Tired,” he mumbles, and Jaskier laughs._

_“Sleep then, darling.” Jaskier shifts backward and tilts his head, trying to catch Geralt’s eye. Amusement dances at the corner of his mouth. “We didn’t get this nice bed for nothing, you know. Another one of my brilliant ideas.” He chuckles at Geralt’s disgruntled glare. “What would you do without me?”_

_It’s a joke. Just a joke, and a stupid one at that, seeing as Geralt is the one who talked to the innkeeper to get the room, paid for by coin he earned. But there is something in the air, something in the firelight that glows in Jaskier’s eyes. Words rise to his lips._

_“I used to sleep outside,” he says._

_“I know.” Jaskier shoots him a quizzical smile. “We still do, mostly.”_

_“No.” This is important. The weight of it crushes Geralt’s chest, blood and lungs and bones screaming at him to make Jaskier_ understand. _“I used to sleep on a bedroll. On the ground. In the rain.”_

_They carry proper blankets now, enough to form a bed of sorts on the road. It’s heavy and impractical, but it makes Jaskier happy and, somewhere along the line, it began to make Geralt happy, too. Sleep comes so much easier without feeling every stray pebble digging into his back._

_Jaskier shifts in his arms, turning to face Geralt properly. He tucks a strand of hair behind Geralt’s ear even though it wasn’t really in the way- and that’s the thing, isn’t it? Stupid little gestures like that, for no practical reason other than to touch and reassure._

_“It was cold,” he tries. Jaskier frowns at him and Geralt pushes down the urge to growl. Words, he decides, are useless. Pitiful tools for an insurmountable job._

_There are no words for the way loneliness hollowed him out. Nothing to describe the shame and bitterness that ate at his flesh went he went to brothels on nights when he wasn’t in the mood for sex- choosing whichever girl looked like she’d take the longest. Just for those few extra minutes with hands on his skin. To feel like a man for a night._

_What flowery prose can explain the leaden weight of knowing that his brothers suffer, too? They were taught the same. They are treated the same. Eskel buries his longing in the thick armor of professionalism. Lambert hides it behind anger and tankards of beer. Their actions are different, but the ache is a mirror for his own._

_“It was cold,” he says again, “and I slept alone.”_

_Strong arms wrap around his stomach. Geralt forgets, sometimes, how well muscled Jaskier is. He is no witcher, no fighter, but he has walked the Path by Geralt’s side for years, and his body has not escaped unchanged. He kisses Geralt languidly. Possessively. Jaskier kisses with single-minded intent, until every single one of Geralt’s muscles has unlocked and melted into the mattress, content. Only then does he pull away._

_“Well,” he says, as though he heard every thought Geralt could not put into words. And perhaps he did. “It’s warm in here, is it not? Even if you go get covered in swamp water again tomorrow, I’ll still be here to stoke the fire and dry you off. Every time, Geralt. I’ll be here.”_

…

When Jaskier finally gives permission for him to walk around a little, Geralt goes to find Vesemir. He moves with halting steps through the halls, even though a potion has taken the edge off the pain, and sinks gratefully into one of the chairs in Vesemir’s study.

“Glad to see you up and about,” Vesemir greets. 

“Glad I’m not dead.”

The older man hums. “It’s the bard you have to thank for that. I doubted him at first. I had a right to, considering his main profession, but I was wrong. Whoever trained him was a master.”

Confusion mixes into the throbbing pain from his wounds. Geralt grits his teeth against both. “Trained him?”

“In medicine,” Vesemir clarifies. For Geralt, it is no clarification at all. 

“He doesn’t have any medical training.”

Vesemir rounds on him with disbelief in his eyes. “Of course he does. He surgically removed three barbed arrowheads from your chest without nicking any major blood vessels or tearing the skin more than necessary. Sewed you up after, too, better than you could have done for yourself.” He points at Geralt, at the neatly bound wounds mere inches from his heart, and says, “Where did you think he learned it? Oxenfurt?” 

Geralt is struck dumb. Silent as the gears grind to life in his skull. Hundreds of moments flash behind his eyes- Jaskier, setting a broken bone in exactly the right place. Jaskier popping a dislocated shoulder back in without so much as a wince. Jaskier sewing up claw marks. Jaskier mashing berries into poultices. Jaskier ordering bed rest with the authority of someone who _knows._ Jaskier, Jaskier, Jaskier, and the fact that he apparently became a doctor overnight and Geralt _didn’t notice._

He lifts his fingers to the fresh stitches, and remembers how, just that morning, Geralt had wondered at their professionalism. 

“I thought he picked it up from watching me.”

“Idiot,” Vesemir says with feeling. “You were useless in our healing lessons. If he picked it up from anyone, it would be Eskel. And even Eskel isn’t that good.”

Words are useless, worthless, pointless things. Geralt stays silent. He stares at the wall past Vesemir's shoulder and does his best not to look as moronic as he feels. From the glimmer of amusement in Vesemir’s eyes, it doesn’t work.

…

“Not quite so hard,” Jaskier advises. Lambert huffs out a breath and loosens his grip on Jaskier’s shoulder. He sweeps his thumb in a circle, feather-light. “That’s a little too soft, actually. You need enough pressure that it’s felt, but not so much that you’ll bruise me.”

Lambert growls, a low rumble of intimidation. Jaskier merely laughs. His ribs rise and fall beneath Lambert’s hands; warm, and alive, and terribly delicate. “Sorry,” Lambert says. 

“Don’t apologize for _this,_ dear. You’re going me a favor either way.” He pushes his shoulder back against Lambert and sighs. “But you did ask to learn, so I’m offering constructive criticism.”

Jaskier is face down on the bed, shirtless, and Lambert is straddling his waist, hands slick with oil as he runs his fingers down tense muscles. Usually it’s him on the bed, enjoying Jaskier’s touch after a rough fight. He wants tonight to be different. 

Massages, Lambert thinks, should be easy. Find tension in muscle, apply pressure. He knows muscles better than any scholar of anatomy, and he is intimately acquainted with tension. He’s just clueless when it comes to relieving it. 

Lambert’s wariness is compounded by Jaskier's vulnerability. He offered a massage and Jaskier lay right down, teasing while Lambert got ready as though he hadn’t just bared his neck to a predator. The trust written into that gesture hurts to think about. Lambert looks down at the body beneath him and knows a hundred different ways to break it apart, but he is certain, knows it like he knows the heft of a blade in his hand, that the thought of danger never crossed Jaskier’s mind. 

He drags a palm down the column of Jaskier’s spine. Like taking a whetstone to a sword- one long stroke. Jaskier makes a face that looks a little pained, but it quickly drops away and he groans, shifting closer. 

“There you are,” Jaskier says. “Perfect.”

The wariness is replaced with pride and Lambert repeats the motion. Satisfaction glows low in his stomach as he watches the stress bleed out of Jaskier’s body. He moves his hands from hips to shoulders, applying pressure with the heel of his palms. 

“Good?”

“ _Lovely._ ”

A creak from the door catches Lambert’s attention, but he doesn’t move. There are no threats at Kaer Morhen. He digs his fingers into ropy muscle, careful not to press to hard, and revels in the noise it pulls from Jaskier. 

“Looks like you two are having fun,” Eskel says from the door. 

Jaskier groans happily and Lambert nods. He’s ashamed, just for a moment, embarrassed to be caught in such an intimate act. But this is Eskel. No man on earth, save perhaps Geralt, is less likely to mock him for needing this. From the fire smoldering in his eyes, Eskel might need it too. 

“How’s your side?” Jaskier mumbles. 

Eskel rolls his eyes and lifts his shirt. The gash on his side is nearly gone. It was shallow to begin with, so rest and mutations have healed the worst of it already. 

“Fucking witcher healing,” Jaskier says. “I’m jealous.” Lambert can’t see his eyes, but he knows his bard. They’re probably soft with emotion, shadowed and bright all at once as he says, “But I’m glad you’re alright.”

“I’m fine. The day a pack of bandits takes down a witcher is the day the sun goes dark.”

Jaskier scoffs. “Don’t tempt Yennefer. I think she’d make the sun go dark if it meant she could sleep in longer around here.”

“It was one time,” Lambert complains. “How the fuck was I supposed to know she isn’t a morning person?”

Jaskier does his best to shoot him an incredulous glare, though it’s ruined by how his face is mashed against the pillow. “Does she _look_ like a morning person? You’re lucky she didn’t burn your damn face off.”

“She’s welcome to try.”

“Like I said. Don’t tempt her.”

Eskel settles on the side of the bed and a glint appears in Jaskier’s eye that means trouble. He nudges Lambert’s hands away and sits up. “Eskel’s turn.” Ignoring both witchers’ noises of surprise, he hops up from the bed and ushers Eskel into the spot he vacated. “Just be careful of the injury. It shouldn’t be too hard to avoid.”

It isn’t. Lambert settles himself over Eskel’s hips the same way he had on Jaskier, and his hands trace Eskel’s back with a confidence and familiarity that surprises even himself. Intimacy is easy with Jaskier, who is so accepting of it. Lambert is still working on that same closeness with his brothers. As Eskel shifts beneath his touch, laughing at something Jaskier says, Lambert thinks this is a wonderful place to start.

…

Geralt finds him at sunset. He’s tucked up in the room they once used as a bedroom. Both of them sleep downstairs now, with the others, but they kept this room for moments of privacy. For conversations to be had out of earshot of others. And for sex.

There’s a bag open on the floor in front of him, its contents spilled haphazardly in piles as he measures what look like flower petals into a tiny vial. Geralt watches him from the doorway for a few minutes. He’s ethereal like this- hair mussed and cheeks ruddy from the warmth of the fire. If Geralt didn’t need him so badly on the Path, it would be tempting to keep him here. Warm and safe.

“Jaskier,” he says, and Jaskier looks up with a smile on his face. 

“Evening, darling. Glad to see you- I thought you’d be helping your brothers polish off that barrel of ale.”

Geralt shakes his head. “Wanted to spend some time with you.”

The little things, he thinks, are deadly. Because that one simple sentence, so easy to say, has lit up Jaskier’s face like a bonfire, like a sunrise, like bandits and arrows don’t exist because everything is right with the world. 

“Well come on in,” Jaskier breathes. He gestures weakly around him, as if uncertain, and Geralt is struck by the very insistent urge to wipe that uncertainty from the face of the earth. The floor behind Jaskier is clear. Geralt settles there, his legs bracketing Jaskier’s hips, his front pressed close to Jaskier’s back. 

It would aggravate his wounds, if he leaned in too much, but he’s careful. Not for his own sake. Geralt couldn’t care less about a little pain from a healing wound. It would upset Jaskier though, and that is unacceptable. 

He wraps his arms around Jaskier from the back and plucks the vial out of his hand. “What is this?”

“Lobelia. Helps with fevers, if you make a tea out of it.”

Geralt points at another vial. This one is orange, full of something liquid. It rests innocuously by Jaskier’s left foot. “And that one?”

“Calendula salve. For burns.”

“For burns,” Geralt repeats. He doesn’t get burned all that often. Monsters fight more with claws and screams than fire, but Jaskier has it anyway. Jaskier has it, and Geralt knows it works because he had some smeared all over a burn wound a few months back after a run-in with a particularly angry sorcerer who had a penchant for enchanting torches. A ridiculous, unpredictable situation that had been, and Jaskier was prepared for it. 

Geralt wonders how much else he has missed over the years. How many other skills had Jaskier learned for him? How many times has he saved Geralt’s life, or just improved it slightly, without so much as a grunt of thanks because Geralt can’t be bothered to notice what’s right under his nose? Too many, he’s sure. Far too many. 

“Where did you train?” Geralt asks. Jaskier stiffens in his arms, his scent turning nervous. 

“Train?” he says lightly. 

“Practice, learn. You know what I mean, Jaskier.” He gestures at the menagerie of medical supplies around them. “Who taught you all this?”

Jaskier slumps. “The game is up, huh? I’m not surprised it took you this long, you know, and I was sort of hoping I’d be able to hide it forever.” It’s not an answer to Geralt’s question. He squeezes his arms around Jaskier’s middle in reminder. “Oh, alright. It was Irene Radford.”

“From Kaedwen?”

“The same.”

Geralt wants to be surprised at that. Truly, he does. But it makes perfect sense that Jaskier learned basic medical skills from one of the most famous physicians on the continent. Of course he did. 

He is a viscount, after all. 

“Why?” Geralt asks. 

Jaskier turns as best he can without dislodging Geralt’s hold on him. Disbelief and frustration color his tone in equal amounts. “Because you have no sense of self-preservation, that’s why. You run towards monsters with your swords and I get it, that’s your job, but those things look way smaller compared to beasts than they do to men. And you always wind up hurt somehow, even if it’s minor.” His voice pitches higher, more strained. “There’s poison, which you don’t mention sometimes, you bastard, so I had to memorize the fucking beastiary just in case. Fascinating stuff, actually, but not when something nasty is trying to relocate your organs to the outside of your body-” 

His hands move about, restless. Geralt fights down the urge to grab them and hold them still. He knows better by now. Jaskier’s rant has to run its course, and Geralt needs to listen while he does because he hasn’t been paying enough attention lately. And did Jaskier just say he _memorized the beastiary?_

“-your stitches suck, Geralt. They’re terrible. They’re the reason you have so many damn scars. You know I think the scars are sexy- and they really are, darling, trust me- but I also know they annoy you. They wouldn’t be so bad if you would just take a little better care of yourself, but you never do. It’s like you have some witcher macho-bullshit voice in your head that tells you all this nonsense about doing the bare minimum when it comes to your health. It’s ridiculously counterintuitive-“

Geralt shuts him up with a kiss. The angle is wrong, but he doesn’t care. What really matters is Jaskier’s breath against his lips and the moment of silence it brings for Geralt to speak. 

Words are useless, worthless, pointless things. He cannot command them as Jaskier does. He cannot portion them out strategically as Vesemir does. He cannot strike with them like Lambert, or strategize with them like Eskel. They are a blunt sword. An empty potion vial. Geralt does not know what to do with words. 

But he knows the right ones here. 

“Thank you,” he says.

It’s not enough, not nearly, but it’s a start. He repeats the words, this time against Jaskier’s jaw. And again at his neck. And again at the soft skin of his shoulder. Geralt pushes tinctures and herbs gently out of the way and lays Jaskier down, breathing out his gratitude in soft kisses and the only two words that feel right. He says them until the syllables lose meaning. Until the only word left in his lover’s mouth is his name. 

They stumble downstairs, much later, and fall into bed with Lambert and Eskel. Winter sets in for good that night, closing off the pass with snow and freezing them all in for the months to come. Geralt doesn’t care. The time is his now to be with his brothers and Jaskier. To, perhaps, unlearn some old habits. From the relaxed set of Eskel’s shoulders during dinner and the pride on Lambert’s face, they’ve already started without him. 

Words and wound care. Geralt never was skilled with either. Good thing then, that Jaskier is both a poet and a healer. And many other things besides. 

As Geralt drifts off to sleep, he promises to learn them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave thoughts/rants/writing prompts in the comments! Reading them always makes my day ;)


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